Thor: God of Thunder to Explore Past, Present, and Future

Continuing the trend of revealing more information about the Marvel NOW! books teased last week, Newsarama posted the first interview with writer Jason Aaron about his new Thor series, officially dubbed Thor: God of Thunder. Along with artist Esad Ribic, it's clear that Aaron has some truly huge plans for the Mighty Avenger.

"This first story is an epic tale that plays out over the course of thousands of years. So we spend time with young Thor in the Viking age — the young, hotheaded god of the Vikings, who loves to come down to Midgard and get into trouble," explained Aaron. "In the present, we see Thor the Avenger on a journey that takes him to the far corners of space, interacting with all sorts of new space gods and wondrous new locations. And then we also see old King Thor, who's the last king of Asgard, thousands of years in the future, where something has gone horribly, horribly wrong."

Tying these different eras of Thor together is a brand new villain named Gorr the God Butcher. Aaron went on to describe Gorr as "a serial killer of gods. He's a guy with a serious axe to grind against all immortal beings in the cosmos, and he's going around doing his best to kill them all off, one at a time, as brutally as possible."

The writer also confirmed that he's scaling Thor's often sizable cast down quite a bit. "One of the things I'm trying to do initially is kind of strip away Thor's existing supporting cast and really focus in on Thor himself. We don't initially see The Warriors Three or Sif, or even much of Asgard itself, not in the present day at least. But certainly the culture of Asgard and the mythology of Thor's life there will always be a strong presence in the book, no matter where in the universe Thor happens to be. Basically, I don't want this book to ever have one specific setting."

To that end, Aaron explained his influences. "I've been reading a whole bunch of old Thor stories since I got this gig, and I like how in the old Lee/Kirby issues, Thor would go on an adventure on Earth for four issues and then he'd go off and be on an adventure on Asgard for the next five. They mixed things up a lot like that. And I think for as long as I'm on the book, I'll be looking to do the same," he said. "I think Thor is too big a character to be confined to just one setting. His adventures should span every nook and cranny of the Marvel U, giving him as grand a stage as possible."

Epic certainly seems to be the name of the game in the case of Thor: God of Thunder, but Aaron is excited to continue his work on the well-received Wolverine and the X-Men as well. "What's nice is between Wolverine and the X-Men and Thor I get to write two very different kinds of stories. Both of them really seem to scratch some itches for me." However, the writer also confirmed that these are his only two Marvel titles at the moment, and that he's using the rest of his time to work on a new unannounced creator-owned project.